Present
by Berneri
Summary: Joel doesn't like to celebrate his birthday. Ellie doesn't care. One-shot!


**A/N: I haven't written fanfics in years. Really, there has been at least 5 years from previous serious attempt to write something as 'long' as this. I hope this won't scare you away, haha!**

**This game affected me so deeply I wasn't contented only with drawing fanart of it. I needed to do more. I might be rusty author but damn it was fun to write this! I just love these characters and their relationship so much. My personal favorite TLOU-fanfics have always had these little moments with Joel and Ellie, so I wanted to do one of those cute moments myself.**

**I can never thank my best friend Johis enough. Without her help I wouldn't be here now, posting my very first decent fanfiction.. It's bizarre how much work she did with this, voluntarily! Because she translated this whole oneshot from Finnish to English. I am not sure how she did it, but it was amazing.**  
**Thank you. Thank you from the bottom of my heart because this really means so much to me. You rock!**

**Oh, and this was originally made only for my two friends Jamppa and Pyttis (because they love TLOU as much as I do), but because I got this chance to get this oneshot translated in English, I figured I could post this here and see what happens.**

**I love to read TLOU-fanfics. Now I wrote one myself.**  
**Strange.**

**Eep, I am kinda scared! This is new territory for me. But okay. Here goes..!**

* * *

A quiet summer night.

A surprisingly quiet one. Even the infected remained silent tonight, you could not hear their typical noise at least in this particular spot in the vast forest, where two people were resting around their small campfire. Only a small breeze blew through the canopy and a late night bird was chirping its final songs for tonight.

Maybe the world did not want to disturb them.

"You know…"

The girl with a ponytail said to her companion while cleaning her pistol. The companion who had just complained how he felt his age on days like these and made the girl giggle slightly with the comment. After this small moment they had both quieted down to carry on with cleaning their weapons.

"Hmm?"

Replied the companion, a sturdy man in his fifties, with his deep voice in an all too familiar, brief manner. The girl was already used to this manner of speaking, Joel wasn't really too much of a chatty person. The rare occasions he actually did get a bit more talkative was mainly in his brother's presence.

And of course, Ellie's.

The redheaded girl who carried the name was nervously sweeping and blowing at her loose hair that kept falling on her face, and sat down next to Joel on a big, fallen tree trunk. Her gaze wandered off into the campfire that the man was occasionally poking with a big stick he had within his arm's reach. He noticed she was struggling with whatever she was going to say next and decided to wait patiently.

It was no use rushing Ellie in a situation like this.

Not that he had any reason to in any case. They had all the time in the world now, and moments like this were getting quite rare.

It wasn't an awkward silence, but still a little bit anticipatory.

"Can I ask you something?"

She finally managed to utter a question, now looking even deeper into the campfire. And because of this, Joel noticed something was troubling her. She had lifted both of her legs on the tree trunk now, arms tightly wrapped around them, head laid on her knees.

Joel raised his brow in confusion, this reckless girl wouldn't normally ask a permission to ask a question even from strangers, let alone him.

"Of course."

He replied shortly, trying to hide his curiosity. The fire was rustling slightly and a few sparks flew high up in the air, appearing bright against the dark sky before vanishing in the air.

"Why don't you want to celebrate your birthday?"

This time the question actually took Joel aback and you could see the surprise on his furrowed face. But soon the surprised expression turned into a bit more annoyed one. He let out a quiet grumble and instead of an answer the girl got another question in return.

This kind of demeanor wasn't anything out of ordinary to him either.

"Tommy told you, didn't he?"

Ellie grinned, in a bit of an apologetic fashion, as this seemed to be the case. Tommy had hinted her about Joel's upcoming birthday a few weeks back. Naturally he had also mentioned, quite honestly, that Joel wasn't too keen on celebrating his birthday. But even though Ellie knew enough about the past of the stern man to know why he behaved the way he did, she wouldn't care about the warning.

And Tommy knew it.

"Because it's a stupid tradition. Celebrating getting older."

The man finally replied briefly again without raising his gaze from the fire and remained silent in spite of feeling the bright, green eyes staring at him. He knew exactly what kind of a stare it was. Ellie would be most likely looking at him with knitted brows, slightly biting her lower lip, sitting there with an unsatisfied expression on her face.

"But… you could celebrate the fact that you have survived another year in this shitty world with all these mothefuckers around!"

Her tone was definitely back to normal now, and he knew his answer had, without a doubt, not satisfied her. At all. Ellie was not a very patient type and wanted straight answers.

"Oh, I don't know. I'm just not that sort-"

"Fuck that, I still want to give you a present!"

What Joel was about to say was interrupted by a high-pitched, quick and disgruntled reply. Ellie sighed sharply, it was out now and there was no going back.

Tilting his head slightly, the bearded man slowly put the stick down on the ground, crossed his arms and leaned back a bit.

"A present…?"

Ellie quickly turned around without saying a word and reached for her bag that had been securely by her feet all this time. For a little moment the air was only filled with the sound of her rustling and rummaging her bag looking for something. Joel was looking at this sight, admittedly a bit curiously, but remained quiet.

Finally the redhead found what she was looking for, and accompanied by a victorious yell of "A-ha!" raised her hand in the air, holding something. He was not even able to have a proper look before she had grabbed his right hand and was now crouching over it.

"No peeking!"

She hissed when his face moved too close in her opinion. He laughed softly, leaned back again and theatrically raised his gaze up in a symbol of surrender, but could also feel that Ellie was very determinedly trying to fasten something around his wrist.

When she finally released his hand, Joel raised it in front of his face and saw a thick, leather bracelet with a small metallic plate now securely tied around his wrist. Quietly, he turned the plate around in his hand without actually paying proper attention to it.

His mind had wandered off somewhere else, over twenty years back in the past. Looking over at his left hand there was a broken watch, on which he always got a lot of remarks by strangers. But they didn't know. They did not know anything. But Ellie knew. That's why it meant so much.

Because the older man didn't say a word, Ellie quickly decided to open her mouth, worried that her present reminded Joel of too many painful memories. That's exactly why she had been so hesitant about giving it to him.

"Uhh.. I mean… Cos you got that watch too.. I just wanted to give you something.. Similar. That would be always with you. I mean I don't think I'm any-"

"Thank you."

The single, quiet word uttered by Joel abruptly cut off Ellie's now almost panicky explanation. There was something a lot more meaningful and serious in his tone and word than normally.

Suddenly he wrapped his arms tightly around the girl, hugging her for the first time in days.

After a slight shock Ellie could feel a new kind of smile rising on her face as she understood what had happened. Joel accepted her gift! Even though he hated birthdays! She responded to his hug by laying her head on his shoulder, covered by the all too familiar shirt he was normally wearing.

After this brief moment Ellie looked at her feet and the sneakers she was wearing, now waving them about in front of the campfire and feeling a lot more relieved. The pair was once again quiet, but this silence was a new kind of one and it made Ellie jump up from her seat.

"Well, happy birthday to you!"

The girl said maybe a bit too enthusiastically, followed by a big yawn and revealing her true state. She noticed she was actually really tired. Apparently all the worrying and stressing over the present had kept her alert and once it subsided she could feel tiredness taking over.

Joel didn't respond to Ellie anymore but she didn't seem to mind as she was happy enough with how it had gone.

Tomorrow they would get up really early to continue their journey, so turning in for tonight seemed like a good option.

She picked up her pistol from the ground, like she normally did, and settled down in her sleeping bag, quietly wishing Joel goodnight and soon drifted off to sleep.

The older man, still sitting by the campfire, decided to settle in his own sleeping bag as well a bit later, thoughts still going through his mind.

Taking one more look at his new bracelet he noticed something in the glow of the fire. Scribbled in the small metallic plate there was something that definitely wasn't originally a part of it, written in a familiar handwriting.

This stern, strong man, who had during his own life taken the lives of many others, of both humans and infected, who had seen so much death and lost so many people around him without shedding a tear, now looked at the script on the plate, trembling slightly.

"_Happy Birthday,_

_Dad"_

And felt his eyes filling with tears.

* * *

Ellie abruptly woke up from her sleep, in her own bed. She hadn't thought about that night in ages. Why did it suddenly come back to her mind now? The redhead slowly turned her head to look at the old clock, that was still, amazingly enough, ticking and showing the time with its pale, worn numbers.

05:37 AM

Knowing that she wouldn't be able to sleep anymore, she slowly and steadily put both of her feet on the floor and got up. Stretching a bit she headed for the bathroom and suddenly felt her back click a little, startling her a bit.

The woman in her fifties looked at herself in the mirror, gently sighing. The dream still fresh in her mind, she very lightly touched the bracelet wrapped around her wrist, as if she was afraid it would break, despite it having stayed there for over two decades.

She still got a lot of comments about the text on the plate that was embedded on the leather bracelet. The text she had scraped on it over thirty years ago, and worrying that a certain man might have noticed what she had been up to and had wanted to take a closer look…

The man she had learned to call her father.

The thought made a small, sorrowful smile appear on the woman's face as she was still stretching her back, now stepping into the living room, where on the sideboard there was a slightly yellowed, framed photo of a bearded man with a rare smile on his face, standing next to a young, redheaded girl.

Ellie had a final look at the bracelet, smiling at the photo and realising what day it was.

"In moments like these I can feel my age too. Happy birthday, dad."

* * *

_Well that escalated quickly, huh? _

_I hope you liked it, even a little._

_Thank you guys so much for your lovely reviews! I am truly surprised and happy!_

_Love you, cheers!_

d_(~ u O)_b


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